MEDIA INFLATE UNINSURED STATISTICS, PROMOTE NATIONALIZED HEALTH CARE

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
JULY 19, 2007

CONTACT: TIM SCHEIDERER OR COLLEEN O’BOYLE AT 703.683.5004

MEDIA INFLATE UNINSURED STATISTICS, PROMOTE NATIONALIZED HEALTH CARE
Actual number nowhere near ‘47 million Americans’ without insurance

ALEXANDRIA, VA – Journalists, politicians and pundits repeatedly claim approximately “47 million Americans” lack health insurance. And they are wrong each time, according to a new report from the Business & Media Institute. The entire debate about health insurance has relied on the number as proof that the U.S. health care system is failing. News stories, including those by ABC’s medical expert Tim Johnson and CBS “Evening News” correspondent Katie Couric, have hyped the number of uninsured Americans, often claiming it has reached 43-47 million. The claim has even gone as high as ” nearly 50 million Americans without health insurance,” according to Michael Moore’s film “SiCKO.” The new analysis, released today by BMI, details how those numbers are off by millions, yet the media rely on them to make a case for socialized medicine.

For example, according to the U.S. Census Bureau:

Of the more than 46.5 million people living in the United States without health insurance, nearly 9.5 million are not citizens.
17 million of the uninsured population could reasonably afford health insurance because they make more than $50,000 a year – substantially more than the median U.S. household income of $46,326.
The Congressional Budget Office estimates that 45 percent of those uninsured get insurance in less than four months.
A more realistic number for the chronically uninsured is between 8.2 million and 13.9 million, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation.

“The media continue to grossly mislead and misinform the American people about health insurance in this country,” said Dan Gainor, director of the Media Research Center’s Business & Media Institute. “They have over-hyped the so-called ‘crisis’ when the facts clearly show that the number of uninsured Americans is far smaller than journalists pretend. At the same time, the media have been cheerleading for socialized medicine and embracing Moore’s one-sided attack against our health care system,” he continued. “The American people rejected Hillary-care and aren’t interested in more Big Government socialism, which has failed miserably across the globe,” Gainor concluded.

Visit www.BusinessAndMedia.org to access the full report.

To schedule an interview with MRC President Bozell or an MRC spokesperson, please contact Tim Scheiderer (x. 126) or Colleen O’Boyle (x. 122) at 703.683.5004.